The redhead human girl, her name was Isrina, shook with fear. She was barely twelve, and those men had bound her to a wooden pole in the middle of a forest clearing. When they had captured her last week, she had begged them to let her go, but they didn't listen. They just put a bag over her head, bound her hands and feet, and then put her onto a carriage and left the village. Again and again she had threatened them with the wrath of her fosterfather, but they didn't listen. They had given her food yes, and also explained to her what her role would be. This was why she was shaking with fear. She was bait, and they were monster hunters. The heartless kind that knew no qualms.
One of them, Grag, had taken the time to explain that it was common practise, that all over the world young girls and boys were used to lure out the creatures of the dark aduring truenight. But actually, it was not an explanation meant for her. It was for him, some futile attempt to justify this injustice to himself. Everyone did it right? So i must be okay.
It was a lie though, and it was forbidden. Those who did it were criminals. They were risking her life for their profit. That was all this was about.
When she asked them, what had happened to their last bait, they just shrugged and said that some... thing had taken her, and that they hadn't been fast enough to catch it... So now it would be Isrinas turn. She didn't know if they deliberately said it, so she would be even more afraid, or if it was true, but judging by their heartless gaze it probably was.
Fear was what they were after, because even the youngest child knew that the creatures of the dark, which came during truenight, savoured fear, desired it... that they could smell it from miles away. During truenight no child ever left the city. During this one day every month, at new moon, when even Emonara didn't illuminate the world anymore with her pale light, people usually refused to even leave their houses.
During truenight no one was out here. Besides the crazy people and the monster hunters. And the monsters.
It was when the last ray of sunlight had just vanished, that she heard the howl. And all fear was gone. She would recognize it anywhere.
During truenight no one was out here. Besides the crazy people and the monster hunters. And the monsters. And her foster father. And his friends.
"A Lycanthrope... very nice..." said Grag, the one man that had been so good at justifying, and continued: "... that will be hell of a bounty. Sorry if he catches you, girl we will do our best... but we can't promise anything. Let's hide guys..."
The other man, a human of probably 35 years with dirty blond hair, missing an eye and a lot of teeth, clad in a leather armor that was partially too big, and partially, especially around the belly zone, too small, hesitated as he saw Isrinas... grin.
"Uhm... Grag... she doesn't seem very unfazed by the fact that a werewolf is out for her..." he said and pointed at Isrina. "...shouldn't she be afraid or someting?"
Isrina smiled.
"What the..." Grag said, but Isrina just interrupted him mid sentence. With a grin chiseled on her face she announced:
"It's not a Lycanthrope.... You know that proverb about wolven? Threaten a child in a wolvens presence, and you are a dead man walking?..."
She howled, which triggered an immediate response: A howl, and then the double "shhkt" sound as two arrows did fell two of the monster hunters at the far side of the clearing.
Then she added in almost a singsang:
"Oh.... you are sooooo fucked now!"— Early childhood rememberances of Isrina "Hammerblow" Conrsdottir.
“...Once a month they say, at new moon, when Emonara stays dark, and and only the far shimmer of the silver gash and a few stars light the sky, it is the time of the plaguebeast. This is when they hunt, when all humans should hide in their homes and forts, villages and cities. Be not afraid, so goes the say, for those who are most afraid are taken first. They can smell our fear they say.
Why is this though, one must wonder, that those who fear one thing the most, are often taken by exactly that thing? Why are those frozen, who fear the ice, those tortured who fear the pain, and those betrayed who fear other people? Why is this manual doomed to be a work in progress, as wherever i go i see different fears and different monsters? Does our fear have a quality to itself, which can be distinguished? Or does the world itself bring our fears to life?”— Excerpt from the forbidden issue of the “Monster Manual”, stored in the vault of black books in the Church library in High Haven.
Truenight, the whats and why
Astronomic Background
Not that anyone on Ardu would know this, but Ardu's Sun is part of a small starcluster with but 72 stars, of which only 50 are seen in the northern hemisphere, lost in the void of the end of the stelliferaous (star generating) era of our universe.
Next to those few lights, there is yet "the gash", a faint, foggy phenomenon in the empty blackness, 0.2 lightyears away.
Lighting up the sky at night remains only Emonara, the moon of Ardu, which, by some catastrophe in the past, has broken into one major piece, and several smaller ones, that follow it like a trail. Once a month during the time of new moon however, even this light fades and truenight falls.
Fae and Truenight
Truenight is the name which the people coined for the one night per month, in which the darkness overwhelms the light, in which plaguebeasts roam free, and when everyone is advised to stay at home, as only lunatics roam the wild. And monster hunters, as the church and many cities pay good coin for a slain plaguebeast or other nightmare creatures.
The reason why truenight has such a big effect on plaguebeasts is not fully researched.
Some mages of the past have theorized that it is due to the fae, which provides the energy for all magic, being particularly succeptive to strong emotions, like fear. Together with a very strong belief in something (or a vivid fantasy) this could, theoretically, once the preconditions are right, will something into existence, even without spells, foci or arcane invocations.
However all who followed this path of research inevitably fell to the abyss of insanity and often turned into a plaguebeast themselves, such that today research in this area is a matter entirely of the "Church of the Maker".
The Plague and truenight
The Plague, this mystical sickness which turns conscious beings into monsters, seems to have a particularly strong connection to the truenight. Necroformy and Lycanthropy are reliant on it to further infection, only during tuenight can a vampire perform the ritual which wakes another person to the undeath of vampirism, and hags and rakshasas rely on it too, to spread their curse. See
The Plague for further details.
Notable however is the importance of truenight to only the human expressions of the plague.
Elves turning into draugh, wolven turning into Rage Horrors, and gnomes and goblins turning into Gremlins can happen anytime, and rhe process does not rely on truenight at all
Hence these races, except the Eadun elves, do not share the fear of truenight.
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